


Quality Time

by myriadism



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Episode: s04e12 And the Echoes of Memory, F/M, Flynn's POV, Gen, Kidnapping, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-19 20:33:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17008731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myriadism/pseuds/myriadism
Summary: Flynn and Nicole spend some quality time together in season 4 while she works to undermine and take down the Library. It's not good quality but Flynn wasn't given a vote."Nicole, seriously this is ridiculous. This won’t work anyways. Even if you can keep me from getting away, Eve and the others will come after me.”“No she won’t.” She says, with such sharp confidence that it cuts right through his ranting."She’ll just think that you’ve left. Again.” She puts her hand against his chest and pushes until he falls backwards into an empty room. His cell.“You’ve cried wolf too many times, my dear Librarian, no one is coming.” Her smile is polished and cold as she closes the door and locks him inside.Or: Local man spends uncomfortable 'sabbatical' with creepy ex. Blames himself unnecessarily for everything. More news at 11.





	Quality Time

Flynn’s time spent with Nicole after she kidnaps him as a part of her plan to destroy the Library is, if it could be described with one word, mind-numbing. Utterly mind-numbing, to use two words, or horrifyingly utterly mind-numbing to use three. He could use more words that that to describe it— after all he knew a lot of words— but it all eventually boiled down to waiting.

And Flynn hates waiting.

The problem is that Nicole knows him. She knew him when he first became a Librarian, she helped him grow into the role, watched him fumble and bluster and fall on his face and then helped him back up again. And she’d had centuries to think about how to use everything she knew about him against him.

He’d been confused initially, after he came to from the bowling ball to the face, still not quite able to believe what was happening.

“What is this, what are you doing?”

“Relax, Flynn. Don’t hurt yourself.”

He casts about trying to figure out where he is while gingerly feeling his face for fractures.

“Oh what- me? Hurt _myself_? Really Nicole, what the hell!?”

“I gave you the choice to come willingly.”

“You knocked me out when I said no!” He was angry mostly. Irritated by the pain and how far from expected this night was going and his inability to understand why. The possibility of actually being afraid of Nicole hardly occurred to him. “That really hurt!” He whined.

Then Nicole grasps him firmly by the back of his neck and the disjointed pieces line up in his head. Nicole said she wanted him to come with her. She knocked him out and he woke up somewhere else. She’s holding him to keep him from getting away. Kidnapping. She kidnapped him.

He struggles a little in her hold, not really trying to escape— after all Nicole is much stronger than him— but to gain her attention.

“Why?” he demands.

“Because you’ve been a prisoner of the Library for too long.”

“I told you I’m not-“

“We’ve all been prisoners of the Library, the whole world, and it’s time for that to change. It’s time for the Library’s reign to end, for the world to get on without it presiding over everything and I’m going to make that happen. Starting with you, my dear Flynn.”

He shouldn’t be shocked, but he is. Jenkins warned him, told him that Nicole was out to hurt the Library, but then she’d done so much to help them. She’d gained all that trust back, and now with a sinking feeling he realizes why.

“What?” he squeaks. “Destroy the Library?”

“It’s time for the old way to end Flynn, and make way for something better. The Library had it’s chance. It’s my turn now.” She offers him a bright smile and all Flynn can think of is shark teeth. He starts to panic, just a little.

“No, I don’t think so. I won’t let you.”

She straight up laughs in his face. And Flynn knows its foolish— knows it’s a long shot— but he squirms out of her grip and tries to make a break for it. She’s on him in three seconds hiking his arm up behind his back and twisting.

“Ah-ow! OW! Nicole, seriously this is ridiculous. This won’t work anyways. Even if you can keep me from getting away, Eve and the others will come after me.”

“No she won’t.” She says, with such sharp confidence that it cuts right through his ranting. She marches him to a doorway and releases his arm so that he can turn around to face her.

“I left your tethering ring where she’ll find it, planted all the seeds telling you to find yourself outside of the library, and took you and all your things without any disturbance in the middle of the night. She’ll just think that you’ve left. Again.” She puts her hand against his chest and pushes until he falls backwards into an empty room. His cell.

“You’ve cried wolf too many times, my dear Librarian, no one is coming.” Her smile is polished and cold as she closes the door and locks him inside.

 

* * *

 

It’s mind-numbing, and Flynn could think of few things worse in his experience than mind-numbing. Because, well he had nothing to do.

He was bored and annoyed and his nose itched. On top of that he had nothing to read, not even magazines for crying out loud! Even prisoners of war got terrible magazines to read, honestly it was inhumane is what it was and he wasn’t going to take it lying down!

Hah. See, it was funny because he could literally do nothing else right now.

He tugs at the restraints again that are holding him on his back in the bed. Not because it will do any good, but because his body is hyperactive and he can’t help it. It’s not that he can’t get out of the restraints well enough— he’s read enough books by Houdini— but he can’t get out of the restraints and disable the security camera on the ceiling watching his every move at the same time. In a few hours maybe he’ll have another go of it, see how far he can get before his babysitters come in to wrestle him back down. So far his record was both hands but he bets with practice he could get fast enough to free one of his feet too for kicking and that might be fun.

Apparently after a few days and a few near escapes he’s too much of a flight risk to be given any leeway.

It’s better when Nicole is there, and also worse. She knows him well enough to predict his escape attempts and counter them, so paradoxically he’s allowed more freedom when she is present to watch him. She takes him out of his restraints, lets him go outside, let’s him feed himself. He despises how much it makes him feel like some sort of pet. And he despises how much time she spends away doing whatever dastardly things she needs to do to take down the Library, leaving him tied up with the hench-nannies. The confinement is dehumanizing, but Nicole is something else entirely.

She’s… he doesn’t know how to describe it— angry, bitter, unhinged? Like a caricature of the woman he used to know redrawn as a testament to pain, to every mistake he ever made, a grudge incarnate. But at the same time she still treats him with gentleness, with a soft hint of affection, and he just feels sorry. He didn’t realize it was possible for him to hurt someone this irrevocably.

Flynn _really_ hates waiting.

 

* * *

 

It’s additionally frustrating to think that the longer he has to wait, the better it was for the Library. It meant her plan wasn’t working yet. Whatever it was. Nicole was hardly foolish enough to tell him what she was doing but she said she was going to destroy the Library and Flynn knew what that meant for the world. He’d managed enough to take precautions for the worst-case scenario right away, right underneath her nose too, by magically sending a message for Eve to his tethering ring. If something happened to the Library, Eve would realize also that something had happened to him, that he would never _ever_ have wanted the Library gone. And then she would figure it out, and she would come for him. Of this he had no doubt.

But in the interim…

She won’t kill anybody, he tells himself over and over again. She can’t, not if she wants her plan to work. The Library has pre-set ways of dealing with the deaths of librarians, that’s business as usual. If she wants to truly destabilize the Library, make it vulnerable, then the other librarians must abandon it voluntarily. And Flynn can’t imagine them doing that. Or actually he can, no matter how much he doesn’t want to, his brain keeps coming back to imagining one grisly wrenching scenario after another that could possibly hurt his fellow Librarians enough to make them leave. His brain is stupid like that; 22 degrees and it still won’t listen when he tells it to just shut up.

Jacob is loyal to the bone once he decides to grant his trust. It would take a big betrayal to shake that. Something personal, intimate, and cruel, and if he’d forgiven Flynn for nearly killing himself with the Eye of Ra without telling anyone the year before, on top of the DOSA double cross plot he and Eve had come up with, then this betrayal would have to be even worse. Something unforgivable and unfixable. The others could never do something like that to him, not if they had a choice at least. But he remembers how shaken and sick he’d looked after the Monkey King of Shangri La had been corrupted and attacked him. And he thinks of all the magical artifacts and creatures that could take over and control people. It’s a long and horrifying list. Then he thinks of all the ones that could disguise someone as another person. He thinks of his own absence and what damage someone could do with a convincing Flynn-suit to walk around in. Jake is smart, observant, and capable. He knows that, but… he also knows that sometimes people with a history of being hurt, especially being hurt by people they love and trust the most can develop almost an expectation of it. Everybody’s got a blind spot, Jake had reminded him once and he thinks he has an idea where Jake’s might be. Like an old injury that will always be a little tender, a little vulnerable, Flynn can only picture too easily Nicole slipping a knife in that spot and twisting. She’d done the same to him after all.

Ezekiel loves the library just as much as any of them and despite his cavalier attitude he was probably all in immediately. Stone hid himself, Cassandra tried to save herself first, but Jones did the job. He whined and complained and got up to mischief and refused to admit to working at all and yet, he remained. There’d been several opportunities; even invitations to leave, to take an easier path, to cut corners and choose personal gain over the small little family they’d built and Ezekiel had summarily ignored them again and again and again. It would take something much more tempting than personal gain to pull him away, but what about personal loss? Flynn knew that despite it all he still had some connections outside the library, he wasn’t sure what exactly had happened over Christmas that year but something had happened he was sure, and Ezekiel was still young so it wasn’t inconceivable that… Flynn’s imagination forces himself to consider what he would have done years ago if someone had threatened his mother while she was still alive over his connection to the Library. He doesn’t want to think of it but this is what his brain does. It churns over the possibilities.

And then there was Cassandra. Oh, Cassandra reminds him so much of himself when he was younger. Astoundingly gifted but lacking confidence, still searching for her place in the world. It’d taken him a good three years to really settle into the lifestyle of Librarian and accept it. To really accept all the sacrifices the job would require of him, and furthermore believe that he was capable of making them. It’s been almost as long for her now, but he isn’t sure it’s the same. Cassandra wasn’t like him; she’d never had the opportunity of a normal life even before the Library. That choice had been taken from her, cruelly, unfairly, and he wouldn’t blame her now if she wanted to take back what she had missed. He knows how much she loves the job, the challenge and the mystery and the magic, even the danger, but if he’d been tempted so Cassandra must make her choice as well. He believes in her, believes she could survive any trial of conscience well intact, really she’s so much wiser than he’d ever been, but with Nicole in the shadows? Pulling the strings? Ready to exploit any weakness, ready to jump at any mistake? Anything that could make Cassandra turn her back on the wonder of magic and discovery and saving people would have to be grisly indeed. And he pictures each possibility, one after another.

So every day the world remains the same, every day the Library doesn’t fall means one more day that Eve and the other librarians are holding it together without him. He’s so proud of them. As the days tick by into weeks, he’s proud and vindicated and fiercely happy, and also alone, tied down to a bed. It’s good, he reminds himself, that they don’t need him to do this, that he can trust them to look after the Library and the world when he can’t be there with them. It’s the best possible scenario. He just wishes he could be there. He wishes he could do anything else other than wait and imagine what might be happening to all of them right now.

 

* * *

 

He couldn’t really be blamed for going a bit stir crazy.

He actually tried to fight his way out once. Fashions a half decent sword out of plastic and folded paper, which was promptly broken to smithereens right after someone broke his nose. Honestly Nicole had managed to procure herself some very capable muscle, he should know considering his comparative experience. Still he’s smug enough to think that he caught them a little by surprise, at least in terms of dumb obvious escape attempts— one has to admit it’s probably the last thing anyone could have expected from him. Maybe he is cracking up, just a little.

Someone was gently brushing their fingers through his hair when he wakes up this time.

“Eve,” he murmurs without thinking about it but when the hand stills he remembers where he is and realizes his mistake. Suddenly Flynn just feels angry.

“Stop Nicole, just stop. Stop this. Please.” He pulls away from her as far as the restraints would allow.

Instead of leaving him to his hell alone Nicole’s hand stiffened, curling to a fist still in his hair. It hurt actually, but not as much as the venom in her voice did.

“You think I never wanted to stop? In all those years, those centuries, you think I never wanted to just give up? To just stop everything? But I couldn’t Flynn, I couldn’t do that because I had to see you again. And I’m not going to stop now. Not when I’m so close.”

He can’t keep himself from trying one more time.

“I’m sorry, Nicole, ok? I’m sorry I made a mistake and you’re the one who suffered from it. I’m sorry I never went back for you. It was my fault. I’m the one who messed up. I’m the one who abandoned you, not the Library, me. You should be mad at me, but don’t take it out on the Library, or the others, they didn’t know. Please, Nicole, the world needs the Library it’s the only thing- it-“

He looks into her eyes and struggles to explain in the face of the darkness he sees there.

“I need the Library.” He says finally, the truth wrung out of him like the clear tone of a bell. “It’s the only place I’ve ever felt at home. You can’t destroy that, you _can’t_.”

It’s half plea and half faith but all meaningless because he can practically see his words slide off of her without effect as she gently cups his face with her cool hands. She’s so calm and so far gone Flynn feels like he can’t even recognize her as the same woman he’d known before. She smiles down at him a little wistfully and there’s nothing there anymore for him to appeal to. Her voice cuts him with all the precision of a scalpel.

“I’m sorry Flynn, but you’re wrong.”

 

* * *

 

 

He misses the apocalypse.

Maybe it’s where Nicole has him trapped, in a place already so devoid of knowledge, wonder, and magic that he can’t tell the difference as the world shifts. Or maybe he’d forgotten as the new reality tried the wipe out the old, not that it can of course— the library is a part of him and he would never forget it— but too many of those brain zapping scramblers could certainly have confused his recollection of how things changed as the Library disappears. Or maybe he’d just been asleep and missed it. Who knows.

Life in the Company’s Institute is almost fun by later comparison, brain-frying resets aside. Guards without imagination are so much easier to outsmart and so he gets to stretch his legs more often, even if he has no where to go. He has his mystery, his mission: don’t forget the Library and that keeps him busy. Even when he can no-longer recall who Nicole is to him, or what he’s doing here, or why.

It all comes back to him when Eve does. He’d been waiting, and now his wait was over.

 After everything— after they get the Library back and Flynn takes a chance and actually manages to fix his mistake with Nicole— he refuses to wait another second and tethers to the Library and Eve right then and there.

It feels so good, so right. The tether ring is so light on his hand he can barely feel it. Eve’s smile shines brighter than a sun as Jenkins, Jacob, Ezekiel, and Cassandra surround them congratulating, joking, grinning, and hugging in turn.

He was home again.

The relief is so overwhelming he almost thinks he might drown in it. But the day wins out, joy and gratitude eclipsing everything else in his head.

Eve and him have a lot of talking to do, comparing notes over what happened and how the timeline had changed. They eventually settle on a plan to keep as much of the knowledge they have of the future to themselves and whenever possible let events progress how they’d gone before. Only this time without Nicole waiting in the wings to sabotage everything. Flynn had enjoyed hearing Eve’s report of what sort of hijinks everyone had gotten up to in his absence— _“Stone got absorbed by a tree? Really?” “Haha, you should come along to Team-Bonding camp with us, maybe it’ll be different this time and you could get eaten by the tree.” “Green’s not really my color… will there be campfire smore’s?”_ They giggle together like a couple of teenagers lost in their own world.

Finally Ezekiel gets fed up and kicks them out of the Annex with the blessing of everyone else to take a day off work and enjoy some post-tethering bliss.

“Seriously I mean it, go get a room and be all gross and mushy somewhere out of ear and eye-shot! Ew!”

It’s so good to be home.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s a shame that all the happiness in the world didn’t stop the occasional nightmare.

Mostly it’s embarrassing. It’s not like he doesn’t know that saying a previous ~~girlfriend’s~~ guardian’s name in his sleep next to his current ~~girlfriend~~ ~~guardian~~ ~~wife~~ everything isn’t weird. He backs away from Eve on the bed as far as he can without falling off. Thankfully it’s dark so he doesn’t have to see the look on her face.

“Flynn? Are you-”

“Yeah I- yes.” He swallows against the dryness in his mouth “I’m fine.” He says. He doesn’t say anything else, just lets the darkness and quiet unspool around them. Tries not to breathe too loud. It hadn’t been a nightmare really, just memories. Not all of his memories of Nicole are even unhappy. He really did love her once all those years ago, and yet at the same time he finds himself unaccountably glad that this new timeline’s version of Nicole doesn’t come to the Library. That he won’t have to see her anymore. While he sits there trying to analyze that feeling, Eve moves over to his side almost without him noticing. She very gently raps her knuckles against his forehead.

“Let me in Librarian,” She says, and Flynn can’t help a chuckle. He leans back into her warmth as he tries to gather his thoughts together into something coherent. Eve waits.

“I’m sorry.” He forces out eventually. “For leaving. I know I hurt you.”

“You didn’t mean to, it wasn’t your fault.”

“It’s my fault for all the times before. For making you think that I could.” Suddenly his anxiety rises up and catches in his throat. “Eve, you need to know that I won’t ever do that again. I’m not going to run away anymore, I won’t leave you, ever. I won’t- I won’t leave- I-“

“Shhhhh, I know Flynn. It’s ok. I know.” She holds him tightly and it’s only then that he realizes he’s shaking.

“Nicole really did a number on you.” She murmurs. He shakes his head too.

“It was my mistake. I fixed it.”

“You didn’t even know she was alive, how were you supposed to have done anything when—“

“No.” It came out sharper than he intended and his thoughts jump onto two tracks simultaneously. He realizes that she doesn’t know about the confession Nicole forced out of him down in the dungeon. Eve doesn’t know about the guilt and the grief that he’s kept buried now for a decade, and he’s not sure he can even bring himself to say it again. At the same time he knows Eve must be shaken too. Nicole killed Jenkins. How had he not thought that she might kill Jenkins? After all the trouble she went through to remove his immortality? He should have seen it coming. Sure it’s fixed and Jenkins is fine now—immortal as ever— and the other librarians don’t remember it but Eve must have gone through her worst nightmare and Flynn hadn’t been there. He hadn’t been there he thinks in self-recrimination and now that he is here he’s trembling, leaning on her, and oh— crying, he’s crying now he realizes belatedly.

“Sorry. I’m sorry.” He furiously scrubs at his eyes.

“You don’t have to be sorry. Just tell me what’s happening Flynn. What’s going on in that big beautiful head of yours?”

“I… I missed you.” It’s not exactly what he wants to say but it’s the best he can come up with and he means it. He takes a minute to breathe and tries to get a hold of himself. He doesn’t actually want to make Eve be the strong one comforting him, because he knows that while he was away she must have had to be _so strong_ holding everyone together. And she’d done it, she’d found him, she brought everyone together again and brought everything back. If it’d been him he’d want to ride that high for the next half-decade at least and try to forget all about the preliminary circumstances. But Eve isn’t him, and if she wanted a break from being strong she deserved one. If she wanted solace she deserved it, and he wanted to give it to her. He wanted so much to just make everything right, for her, for himself, for them. He wanted things to be all right.

“I missed you too.” Eve says with a kiss to his temple and Flynn sighs deeply. Maybe things are all right, in a way. He thinks things can’t be too wrong if Eve’s kisses can still make him feel like _that_. His mouth finds hers in the dark and that’s even better, kissing her, feeling her, warm and present and real.

“Are _you_ ok?” He asks Eve.

“Now that you’re here.” She replies, running her hands up and down his back.

Flynn realizes suddenly that it can wait. His guilt, his self-blame, his fear and confession can wait. He’ll tell Eve everything eventually— certainly she isn’t likely to let it go anytime soon— but he doesn’t have to force himself to find a way to explain tonight. He can wait to tell her when he’s ready and that will be all right. Instead he gets bowled over by another wave of unrestrained love, for Eve and for the life they’ve built together. He pulls her into another kiss and then tugs until they’re both laying back down, stretched out in the warm middle spot of the bed again.

“Talk about it tomorrow?“ He asks her.

“Sure,” she says “we have all the time in the world.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure how I feel about the ending here. I didn't want to make it seem like Flynn was avoiding or evading anything with Eve or stuff he really ought to talk about. But I wanted to wrap it up with some lightheartedness and make a nice cyclical connection. Anyways let me know what you think. This is my second fanfic ever and I really should have been writing my essay for school but instead... you get this. Sorry-not sorry about all the angst, poor Flynn is just too good as a dude in distress. It's looking like this is my place in the fandom now, angsty Flynn in distressed stories. 
> 
> PS- I think a good half of these feels are just sublimation from my anxiety over school finals last week, whoops.


End file.
